hardwood floors

Anyone have them? We do. Even in our kitchen.

We renovated our two car garage and turned it into an eat-in kitchen about 15 years ago. The wooden floors are pine. Very soft.

It's time to have them refinished, but the thought of all that dust makes me sick.

We just experienced an indoor dust storm while redecorating our den and I'm still wiping dust off the plants, books, etc.

Who knows when we'll muster up the energy to get the kitchen floor done. I don't feel like cleaning every dish, glass, pot and pan in the cabinets.

What a whiner.

Dotsie, did you cover the heat and return vents in the room being sanded? Did you hand plastic covers over doorways to keep dust to a minimum?

Also you might want to check out the Hyla vacuum. It's a vacuum that uses a water collection tank--but it also can be set in a room and used as an air purifier--it sucks the gunk out of the air! If you had one you could set that in the room while they are sanding and clean the air as it is being dirtied. Would help keep things cleaner. I have one and you wouldn't believe what it is able to clean and remove from carpets and the air.

If you hang plastic over your cabinets you shoudl be able to keep the dust to a minimum.

starting over, we put plastic over the doorways, but not the vents. I neve thought to do that. Great idea to put plastic over the cabinet doors. Hmmm, maybe we can do this afterall. I'll wait for spring.

We are in need of a new vacuum. Mom's lasted forever. We seem to replace ours every year. We had a Rainbow at one time. That also had the water tank, but the dang thing was so clumsy to use. It had several parts and I got tired of them all falling apart while I vacuumed.

I'll check out the Hyla. It sounds good. They're good for allergies too.

We're considering putting hardwood floors in the bedrooms and office. The rest of the house is ceramic tile.

Any suggestions on what to look out for? What about upkeep? How much work is it?

Isn't the Rainbow and Hyla the same thing???


Have a Kirby for upstairs...needed another for downstairs, bought a recondition one from Ebay, it's just like new. They last years, and years. Would be happy to send his link if your interested, he has 100% feedback...I was more than pleased with the product and his shipping.

Vicki, I would also like to put the hardwood floors in...my daughter says they are easy to install...just links together. She installed the Pergo...her pit bull runs across it all the time...not scratch one, just damp mops... that it. I'm impressed.

Home Depot has a workshop to show you how-to install...now all I need to do is to make it over there on a Saturday morning.

We put hardwood all over the house last year because our very old and incontinent cat was driving me crazy. Of course he recovered bladder control the moment we got the zillion dollar floor. But now we have a puppy so it's great to have a floor that can be mopped.

Anyway, I love the floor. It looks so pretty down the hall and in the larger areas. It's easy to keep clean with all the new gadgets they have. I got a light weight dust buster re-chargable thing that has a cordless vaccumn in front of a mop thing that has a sprayer for floor cleaner or can be used dry. Dusting the floor is about all it needs most of the time--well at least after the cat recovered and until the puppy arrived.

I have no idea what to look for. Some of the laminate looks great, but real wood is so much prettier. You'll love it.

smile

Vicki, our whole home has hardwood floors, except the bathrooms. The only room that is pine is the kichen and it's beautiful. We have the wide slats.

The only problem is that pine is very soft so it has to be refinished more often.

I think you may be interested in oak. I believe that's what's i the rest of the house. You can use any color stain. I think hardwood floors add character.

I had to get laminate because my house is on a slab and I was told hardwood would not work due to the moisture. They are very easy to clean and Daisy doesn't scratch then at all.

Several months ago she barfed a huge wet pile and was I glad I chose not to get carpet!

Daisygirl

I asked this question on my site and nobody had heard of it. There are new glass kitchen counter tops on the market. I imagine they are really expensive. They come in different designs and your counter top serves as a cutting board too.

Any of you heard about them?

We have painted, polished concrete floors in our new sky flat.

Never heard of them but I'm wondering if they're similar to the glass tops on stoves?

Dianne,
That is a new one om me . Are the counters like a plexi glass .? Or something like corning ? I bet it is beautiful counter top.

[ February 16, 2006, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Renee ]

Being an avid recycler and environmentalist, I installed a counter made of recycled glass when I remodeled my kitchen a couple years ago. Pieces of colored glass are embedded in a material similar to cement. The finished product looks similar to terrazo flooring and it's gorgeous. You can choose the color (or 4 colors in my case) of glass, the sizes you want the glass pieces to be, and the color of the base material. You can even supply your own glass (so if your family owns a brewery, for example, you can use pieces of broken beer bottles). The finished product feels like marble and needs to be maintained about the same.

I can't tell you the pleasure I get from seeing light shining through some of the pieces of glass. It's very beautiful.

If you're interested, check out www.counterproduction.com; they have pictures on their website. I know other companies are making a similar product but I don't know the company names...you can always do a google search.

MaryE, how cool. I thought they would be bumpy and hard to clean. Wow, they're like marble? I bet that's pretty.

Dianne, your floor sounds so mod. What's the rest of the condo like?

MaryE, that link didn't work for me.

Dots, I posted a link to our place in the travel thread.

Whenever you post a link, make sure you don't put a "period" or a "semi-colon" at the end of the link. People have a tendency to cut and paste the entire thing and then the links don't work. Try again Ms D, it could be the problem. Hugs, JJ

Dianne, Jawjaw is right. The semi-colon screwed up the link. It seems to work fine if you omit that. ....sorry...

We are considering replacing the carpet in our family room with a hardwood floor. There are so many different brands and kinds of wood floors to choose from. I'm in a quandary to which of these wood floors to pick. They all have pros and cons. The lamanite is reasonably priced, but I understand if it is installed with the wrong pad under it, it can sound kinda hollow when you walk over it, and it is much colder on the feet than real wood. There is the engineered wood that clicks together like lamanite, but has the look and feel of real wood. Then there is the real wood that has to be nailed down, but after time may have to be refinished...messy/dusty. There is Parquet also, which are the small squares that are nice. I generally research things to nausiaum and then get more confused than ever. Do you all have a favorite type, style, color,or brand of wood floor??......or should I just stick to carpert???

~Cookie~

I don't know which areas of the country but there has been a problem with mold from wood flooring. Many floor guys here in AZ won't even install the laminate any more because they're afraid of getting sued. As I understand it, real wood floors, tile, and other 'natural' materials 'breathe' better and the mold problem isn't as bad or is non-existant. We are in the process of remodeling and will be replacing all of the carpet mostly with saltillo tile because the concrete foundation is so old, cracked and uneven. There is a self-leveling concrete we could pour over the current foundation so we might try that and go for bamboo or cork flooring in the bedrooms.

Thanks for your imput yonuh! That does make sense about the mold. I never thought about that! I guess if one's house is on a slab or concrete, there probably wouldn't be any vapor barrier between the floor and concrete, where as mositure could not escape, and then causing mold. As with a house on foundation with a crawl space or a basement, air would be able to circulate a little more to dry out the mositure and hopefully not have the mold problem. Good luck with your flooring too!

Can you stand more about hardwood floors? Our house is over 100 years old, with an inlaid floor in the living room. While we were renovating the house, I 'pondered' that lovely, badly used floor. It had been sanded before, the heart nearly taken out of the wood. Finally, I decided to do the least to it, hoping for the best. I thoroughly washed it, put paste wax on it, rented a big buffer and, wow! The beauty of the wood has come through--by the second year, the protection was well set and I let it go for two years. An easy solution for old wood--

I love wood floors. We did a kitchen addition several years ago and put wide, pine, wooden planks in and it looks and cleans beautifully. Of course it shows all the dings and divets, but I think that gives it charm.

We also have wooden floors in other rooms in our home. They are so easy to keep clean.

I say use the real product!

We bought a house last year that is 136 years old. There are two large sections of hardwood floor that are original. My girlfriend gave me this tip that makes them shine like a new penny. I take amonia and water and give them a good washing. I let that dry and then use Liquid Future Floor wax. A friend of ours is in the flooring business and eventhough the bottle says not to use it on wood floors, he says it will not harm them...I've been using the Future floor wax on my floor for almost 2 years now and my goodness are they beautiful. They're one of the first things a person notices. I also use the liquid floor wax on my painted stairs (they're painted high gloss black) and goodness do they shine as well). Neither the floor nor the stairs become slippery...just beautiful. Normally, I put at least two coats on letting each dry between coats for about 8-10 hours...that way when I do put my furniture back there aren't any scratches. I love this stuff!!!

We were blessed to find it. It's work...seems I get all the cleaning done and poof!!! I start all over again. But, it's worth it. My husband, bless him, is busy calking up every crack in the house he can find, painting the screens with a fresh coat of pain and getting the house ready for winter. It's going to be around 30 tonight, which for our neck of the woods is very cold. He'll be back out tomorrow doing some more work. We hope to be finished with the touchup by the end of the week and then we can relax in front of the fire in the evenings with a cup of hot chocolate or apple cider. I love this time of year.

Oh, Dee...that is so funny that you use Future floor wax too! I learned that trick from my mother. Actually, she started out using Future, years ago, but then she found the store brand worked just as well. I have all hardware floors in my old house (except for the kitchen/bath), and it works like a charm!

I am going to come back to this post in the spring. We had our floors scheduled to be done next week but postponed it unti the spring. They need refinishing and it's such a mess. I didn't want to deal with it before the holidays. Anyway, I'm going to give your method a try. Thanks so mcuh.

Good luck Dotsie. You won't regret the effort after you see the finished product. If I do this again, however, I'm going to sand down the wood floors a touch and put a polyurithane coating of some type over it so I don't ever have to wax them again...my girlfriend did her floors that way and they're just as beautiful.